Because I can’t be arsed writing anything original today, but I feel guilty about not posting. There will be real writing coming, I promise.
Kimbra: Cameo Lover
This might just be my favourite song for the year. It’s so catchy, and the video clip is so… colourful!
If you’re not tapping your foot by the end of this song, you have no soul. It’s official.
Couch Surfing
I’m not sure who these broshenanigans folks are, but that’s pretty darn sweet. And this is very much on my list of “projects to do when I’m keen to do something mad”.
Google+: it’s not Facebook.
So I managed to snag myself an invitation to Google+ the other day, and I’ve been rooting around with it, seeing what I can do, trying to break it. In summary: it’s pretty sweet. Read on after the break for the full report. Read more
Raid Recruitment, and an IRL analogy.
It’s been a while since I made a World of Warcraft post, but this is one that has implications for the world outside of Azeroth as well.
As some may know, I’m a guild leader in World of Warcraft. I oversee a group of people who like to kill imaginary monsters made of pixels for imaginary loot. Anyway, I was recruiting for a raid leader (someone who coordinates the fights against imaginary pixel monsters, for the uninitiated) in Trade chat today, and had the following conversation with a mage (all spelling errors reproduced faithfully, comments in [square brackets]).
Mage: ill join [ill join? What about joining is so ill?]
Me: You’re interested in leading raids for us?
Mage: yeah ok
Me: I have to say, you don’t sound very keen
Mage: gonna let me join? [not if you keep this up]
Me: What experience do you have at leading raids?
Mage: done them all about twice and had no wipes [wipes, for those not in the know, are when everyone dies a horrible flaming death of doom and you have to start again]
Me: Led them? On which toon?
Mage: yeah. This 1
Me: well I know that’s not tue because I’m looking at your armory [online character record, it's a US game so it's spelt funny] right now and you have nothing but 2 BH [Baradin Hold, a facerollingly easy raid] runs.
First of all, what the hell? He had to know I could access his armory data, so either he was hoping I was stupid, or trolling. I’m hoping it’s the second option, I don’t like to think someone believes me to be that stupid.
Second, this is kind of like people who lie on their resumes, in a sense. It used to be, in World of Warcraft, that you had to ask around to find out what people were like, how many times they’d done a raid, and so on. Now, with linkable achievments granted every time you kill a boss the first time, and with the WoW Armory keeping track of the number of boss kills, it’s easy to see someone’s progression and experience just by looking them up online.
Now look at the real world. If I apply for a job and say all sorts of things about how I’m so mature and responsible and you want to hire me, is that going to stack up against what a quick Google search will say about me? For me it will, as I’m pretty straightforward about my quirkiness in interviews and my CV’s personal profile, but think about those people who fudge (or just outright lie) on their CV and their interview. I wonder how likely they are to get caught out now? Obviously recruiters IRL have nowhere near as much information as I have access to for in-game recruitment, but surely they can reach more information than ten years ago. Thoughts?
Lenny Briscoe, singing candlestick
Just in case you didn’t know that Jerry Orbach, gritty NY Detective of Law & Order fame, was in fact a broadway actor and the voice for Lumiere in Beauty and the Beast. Yes, he actually sang the role. As if Major Charles Winchester as the Clock wasn’t enough!
A poptart cat farting rainbows. To Techno.
If you haven’t already seen this, you’re obviously (a) living under a rock or (b) avoiding memetic infection. Either way, this is Nyan Cat. I was going to write a pithy post about the post-modern implications that Nyan Cat has on consumer culture, but… eh. It’s a techno-kitty, it’s catchy dance music, and OMG POPTART CAT FARTING RAINBOWS TO TECHNO.
Social Media Is Not: Marketing
This is the fifth and final instalment in my foray into blogging on the topic of public relations, and it’s been fun. When I sat down to plan these posts, I gave the title of “social media is not marketing”. This is true (social media isn’t marketing), but… social media isn’t public relations, either. What I meant is that the approach of a marketing professional towards social media is not the same as the approach of a PR professional towards social media. There’s an unspoken “public relations” at the beginning of the title, but if I’d added that it would have spoiled the pattern I had going on there. Now that that’s out of the way: Why can’t you just lump all your social media activity into one pile and call it a day?
